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Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos describes himself
as the spokesperson for the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN) but, since he is so
prominent a figure, he is considered by many to be
one of its main leaders.

According to the Mexico|Mexican government,
Marcos' former name was Rafael Sebastián Guillén
Vicente. Guillén studied high school at Instituto
Cultural Tampico, a Society of Jesus|Jesuit school
in Tampico, Tamaulipas, where he became acquainted
with Liberation Theology. He later moved to Mexico
City where he graduated from the Metropolitan
Autonomous University (UAM), then received a
masters' degree in philosophy at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and began
work as a professor at the UAM. After that he left
to begin his revolutionary activity. While Marcos
has always denied being Rafael Guillén,
Guillén's family are unaware of what happened to
him and they refuse to say if they think Marcos
and Rafael are the same person or not. During the
Great March to Mexico City in 2001, Marcos visited
the UAM and during his speech he made clear that
he had at least been there before.

Like many of his generation he was radicalised by
the events of 1968 and became a militant in a
Maoism|Maoist organisation. However, the encounter
with the outlook of the Native American|indigenous
peasants of Chiapas transformed the Zapatistas'
ideology, and Marcos has embraced an approach to
social revolution that has been described by some
as postmodernism|post-modernist; others argue that
his philosophies and actions are more closely
related to the revisionist Marxist ideals of
Antonio Gramsci that were popular in Mexico during
his time at university.

Marcos in his own words: 
:Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South
Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San
Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in
Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San
Cristobal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker in the
National University, a Jew in Germany, an
ombudsman in the Defense Ministry, a communist in
the post-Cold War era, an artist without gallery
or portfolio.... A pacifist in Bosnia, a housewife
alone on Saturday night in any neighborhood in any
city in Mexico, a striker in the CTM, a reporter
writing filler stories for the back pages, a
single woman on the subway at 10 pm, a
peasant without land, an unemployed worker... an
unhappy student, a dissident amid free market
economics, a writer without books or readers, and,
of course, a Zapatista in the mountains of
southeast Mexico.  So Marcos is a human being, any
human being, in this world.  Marcos is all the
exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities,
resisting and saying, 'Enough'!

Much of his writings – articles, poems,
speeches and letters – have been compiled
into a book: Our Word is Our Weapon.

In December 2004, he announced plans to write a
book, called Muertos incómodos (Awkward Dead), in
conjunction with crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo
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